Conversations on Faith and Culture

The Moral Question Behind Infinity War

Spoiler alert! In this special episode, Scott and Sean discuss the ethical questions behind the recent blockbuster movie Infinity War. Here is the big question they explore: Under what conditions is it just to sacrifice a life (or lives) for another? They discuss various scenarios in the film and make some practical applications for today. And they discuss how the theme of Infinity War powerfully assumes certain ideas of love and sacrifice at the heart of the gospel.

Episode Transcript

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host Scott Rae, Dean of Faculty and Professor of Christian Ethics also at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.

Sean McDowell: Today we have a very unique topic that we're going to discuss. In fact, we're going to have fun with this top. Not to imply we don't normally have fun.

Scott Rae: I thought we always do.

Sean McDowell: That's the way I see it, but we are going to push the limit today because we're going to be talking about the new movie "Avengers 3: Infinity War." Now before we go any further, let me just say I'm going to give a full spoiler alert here. So if you've not seen the movie yet, you're going to need to find about three hours of your life and probably $30 bucks for popcorn and a ticket. So either go see that or of course, if you don't care about spoilers, you're welcome to listen in. Regardless, this isn't so much about the particular story but certain ethical questions that Infinity War raises. And like any good movie, it does a great job of asking some of the big ethical questions of today. Before we go any further, let me say something about Doctor Scott Rae here. Now most of you probably know this, but he was actually my professor undergrad and at Talbot on ethics.

And he has written numerous books on ethical issues, business ethics, your book Moral Choices has kind of been a turn to or go to book for many people on introduction ethical issues. You got your PhD in philosophy and ethics. You consult. So I'm just gonna toot your horn, so to speak. You really are one of the leading ethicists, Christian ethicists, today. I want our audience to know that because I'm suspicious that you probably haven't seen many Marvel movies.

Scott Rae: Oh Sean, come on now! I have seen some Marvel movies, but if you really push me for the titles, I got nothing.

Sean McDowell: Okay. All right. Now have you seen the recent Infinity War?

Scott Rae: I have not.

Sean McDowell: Okay. All right. So you're telling me you haven't found three hours of your time, and you don't have kids at home. What else are you doing with your time?

Scott Rae: Let's not go down that road. What I'm doing with my time is trying to stay on top of life here. Just because your kids are out of the house has no bearing on the complexity of your schedule.

Sean McDowell: I definitely hear that.

Scott Rae: In fact, your life actually becomes a lot less complicated, because when you have kids your kids age at home, you say no to just about everything. So I actually have decisions that I have to make that I didn't have prior.

Sean McDowell: All right. Well that sounds like a good topic for another podcast that we could explore.

Scott Rae: Which being translated means stop talking about it and let's move on.

Sean McDowell: All right. Let's go. That was a nice way of translating it. I love superheroes. I've seen all ... I don't even know if this is the 19th or so superhero movie.

Scott Rae: I actually wish we had a picture of the keyboard on your computer right here.

Sean McDowell: You know what? Every single key is a superhero.

Scott Rae: It's unbelievable. We should take a picture of that and post it with this podcast so our listeners can actually see how committed you are to this superhero thing.

Sean McDowell: Being a dad helps, but I also ... There is a desire to be a superhero deep within me, which is why I loved seeing this movie. To be honest with you, I saw it twice actually over the weekend.

Scott Rae: Six hours out of your life.

Sean McDowell: At least six hours, that's correct. And I thought it raised some great questions that we can just ... not necessarily fully answer, but just unpack for people to think about a little bit. Now like any good movie, there's a central theme and idea that's like a golden thread that works its way through this movie. So take for example the classic movie ... Take Jurassic Park or Jurassic World. The idea of that basically is if you mess with nature, nature will mess with you. That's kind of the theme of it. Or the recent movie The Greatest Showman is really about someone trying to find acceptance of the larger society but really finding it amongst the people closest to him.

Well movies have consistent themes. And in this recent Avengers movie, there's kind of a theme that goes from the beginning all the way to the end. And it's basically this question: Under what conditions is it morally just to sacrifice an innocent life or lives to save others?

So let me say that again. Under what conditions is it morally just to sacrifice an innocent life or lives to save others? Now you see this at the beginning when Thanos, the bad guy, has Thor and he's about to kill him. And Loki, the brother of Thor, has basically the choice, "am I going to give the tesseract which has power which can make Thanos destroy half the universe, am I gonna give it up to Thanos, or let Thanos kill my brother Thor?" That's a choice the movie opens up with. You also see, with Scarlett Witch, she has a relationship with Vision. And embedded in his forehead is what's called the mine stone that Thanos also needs, but to get the mine stone out, it's going to require the loss and the death of Vision. So do they take his life to save other people? You see this with Iron Man and Doctor Strange. You see it with Star Lord, his relationship with Gamora. And you also see it with Thanos the bad guy and Gamora.

So this is consistently throughout the film. Now this isn't just an academic question. This actually comes up in some of the popular questions of today. Now before we specifically get to how we would answer some of these questions in Infinity War, let me ask you just for some moral kind of guidelines or principle on some of the similar ethical questions of today. So for example, are drones moral even if it's going to result in the sacrifice of some innocent lives. This is the same kind of question. Give us some parameters in how we would think about that.

Scott Rae: Well, let's take a big step back from the details on the ground. And I think there are two sort of fundamentally different ways we think about ethical issues like these. One, which has I think become the most common in our culture today, is more what we call a utilitarian framework, where there's nothing that's intrinsically right or wrong. Whether something's right or wrong depends on the consequences that it produced. So the actions that produced the greatest balance of benefits over harms is the action that's the most moral. Now there's an extension of that which we call more of a rural utilitarian, which has set moral rules, but they're not based on anything like moral virtues or principles or values, they're based on a predictable track record of consequences. So we might say that sexual assault is always wrong, not because we necessarily believe women have intrinsic dignity and shouldn't be violated, which we'll get to that different basis in a minute, but because when a woman is sexually assaulted it always produces the same set of harms. And even to think that it might produce beneficial consequences is sort of a ludicrous concept. Okay.

So that's one of the utilitarian way, which culturally I think we have taken ... I call a truncated view of that today, where we really basically say that an action is okay unless it produces significant harm. So we really don't weigh harms and benefits that much. We just weigh harms. The utilitarianism we use today is what I call the No Harm/No Foul ethical methodology. By contrast, is what's called more of deontological way of viewing morality, where things on a deontological base are intrinsically right or wrong, and the consequences don't matter. So for example, I've got a way I'm sure that we could reduce traffic fatalities to virtually zero. There's a really easy way to do it. Require all parents of children under the age of ten to strap their children to the front bumper of their car before they take off on any trip. I guarantee it. You would drive a lot more carefully ...

Sean McDowell: Absolutely.

Scott Rae: ... if you had your child strapped to the front bump. But the reason we don't do that has nothing to do with what it would do with traffic fatalities. The reason we don't do that is because our children are intrinsically valuable, and it's intrinsically wrong to take those kind of risks with a child. So those are two really different ways of looking at ethical issues in general. And so, I think from a Christian view of the world is much more deontologically oriented. In fact, I would say a Christian ethic is a blend of principles and virtues, because the principles help us make decisions, the virtues govern the kind of character that we have.

So in the scripture, we would say that the virtues come first because morality is ultimately based on God's character. And we have the moral values that we do because God is the kind of God that He is. So for example we say, "Yeah, that's true that love makes the world go round," which is actually a utilitarian thing. But we say loves a good thing, but the reason it's a good thing is because fundamentally that's who God is. And we are to be forgiving people not because forgiveness heals fractured relationships, but because fundamentally God is that kind of a God. So it's a blend of virtues and principles, which I think is more of the way the scripture wants us to deal with ethics.

Sean McDowell: Now this is really helpful because Thanos is God type figure in this. And he utilizes utilitarian thinking. In contrast with the Avengers, although there might be times where they have some utilitarian thinking, you see some sacrifice they're making not just because the consequences, because it's the right thing to do. So this comes out a little bit in the film itself. So how would you apply that to questions like say drones. Would that ever be okay, even though some of the consequences may be negative?

Scott Rae: The other thing that's involved in framing our ethic is the difference between action and intention. Your intention matters, not just the result. If I don't intend to insult you, but I say something stupid that offends you, that's different than if I intentionally willfully say something that I know will be hurtful to you. There's a different level of culpability involved in that. Yeah, I'm guilty for being stupid if I say something inadvertently. But if I don't intend to hurt you, I'm not guilty of doing something unethical. Maybe I'm guilty of poor etiquette or just being unwise, but I'm not guilty of doing something immoral. So the intention matters quite a lot. So I could see, with a drone strike, what I would suggest is the deontological principle that comes out of this is it is always wrong to intentionally take innocent life, so regardless of what benefit that produces.

And in general, I think it's a deontological principle that dictates that it is always wrong to do evil in order to accomplish good. So I think with drone strokes, I think you can make a distinction within the intention. It's one thing ... Say take the movie ... I don't know, you may have seen the movie Eye in the Sky, which was about a drone operator who was ... They had targeted a house which was a staging area for suicide bombers. And right as they're about to launch, the bombers, they're strapping on their vests and so time matters. But right as they're getting ready to launch, a kid sets up a fruit stand well within the blast radius of the house.

Sean McDowell: Gosh.

Scott Rae: So you know that if you launch the drone, the kid's gonna die. Now what they do in the movie, spoiler alert. It's a terrific movie actually, I highly recommend it.

Sean McDowell: When was this movie made?

Scott Rae: Just a couple years ago.

Sean McDowell: All right. Just checking.

Scott Rae: I know what you thinking. I have gone to movies in the last two years.

Sean McDowell: Just checking.

Scott Rae: But they delay as long as they can. And they end up launching the drone. And the kid is not able to get out of the way. And the kid is killed. Now all the suicide bombers are wiped out as well. But you can tell that they waited as long as they possibly could. I think they made the distinction between intention and anticipated side effect. Because the action, what they were trying to do, was to actually take out the terrorists who were getting ready to go out on the streets, but they didn't target the innocent person. They didn't intend to kill the innocent person. It was an unintended side effect of an otherwise justifiable action.

Sean McDowell: Gotcha. This relates to Thanos's motivation very very clearly. And I think it will come out as we probe this a little bit further. So what deontological thinking does is it helps us realize that somebody's motivations and reasoning is a piece of it, not just the consequences. Consequences are important, but we can't separate that from the reason why somebody would act.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Or even on a deontological view of ethics, that there's more to it than just following the principle. If the principle is never to take innocent life, then we've got a whole different discussion. But that's an incomplete view of what constitutes a moral act, because the way we assess a moral act is not just with the action, certainly not just with the consequence, it's also with the motive and the intention as best we can know it. And sometimes we can't. So for example, if I took out my wallet and gave you a ten dollar bill just 'cause I think you're a great guy and you're my friend, that's one thing. I intend to give you a gift.

But if I take out a ten dollar bill, but I have an expectation that you're gonna give me favorable treatment on your next blog post, then I've bribed you.

Sean McDowell: Right.

Scott Rae: And so, you can actually have two identical actions that the only distinguishing mark is the intention.

Sean McDowell: That makes a lot of sense. I remember in class you were talking about how a knife plunged into somebody's body if it's to harm the person, it's very different than a surgeon trying to save the person.

Scott Rae: That's right.

Sean McDowell: Intentions are a piece of it. So let me ask you one more before we apply this specifically to some of the decisions that come up with Avengers 'cause I think it'll help people. What about a question that comes up, if the life of a mother is in jeopardy, you have the value of the unborn baby-

Scott Rae: Pregnant mother.

Sean McDowell: Of a pregnant mother, yes. If she has a pregnancy, it's going to jeopardize the life of the mom. How could a Christian think about this in particular to somebody who's pro life?

Scott Rae: Take for example, the most common occurrence of this is an ectopic pregnancy, which if you're not familiar with that term it's when the embryo implants in the woman's fallopian tube instead of in the uterus. And 99.999 percent of the times, it's fatal. You have to take care of it within the first eight to twelve hours, or else the woman will die. Now in a case like that, the intention is to save the mother. But what you are doing essentially, the physicians will do, they'll just snip a little opening in the fallopian tube where the embryo falls out of the tube, and essentially spontaneously miscarries. So you are facilitating ... basically you're facilitating a spontaneous miscarriage, which if you did not do that would kill both the mother and the baby.

The reason generally that we opt, when we have to choose ... And you should be aware to, the number of times when we actually have to make that choice is minuscule.

Sean McDowell: Really rare.

Scott Rae: Very very rare. But it does happen. But in almost all of those cases, if you lose the mother, you're gonna lose the baby also. And so, there's no really no choice to be made there. Of course, your intention is to save the mother's life. And the side effect, the anticipated but unintended side effect is the demise of the embryo as it spontaneously miscarries.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: So I don't think it's fair to say that you are intending the death of the embryo. You're intending to save the life of the mother. Another example of this would be say, pregnant woman gets a really aggressive form of ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, and she's gotta start treatment now. It's the same thing. Our intention is to treat the mother and we pray hard and hope for the best for the baby to survive the toxicity of chemotherapy, which is unlikely. But our intention is not to kill the child.

Sean McDowell: It's to save the mom. Okay. So you've brought a couple of really important ethical points here. Number one, that as Christians we can't be motivated just by consequences 'cause there's individual good in actions and people regardless of consequences.

Scott Rae: Yeah. There's another reason we can't do that.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: And that is because who says what constitutes a harm and a benefit? God forbid, if you got run over by a truck in the street, who's to say that the loss of your life would be a bad consequence, other than your family of course? But on what basis will we call that a harm? Well the reason we call that a harm is because there's something intrinsic about you that's been violated by that. If it's an accident that's different.

Sean McDowell: Sure sure.

Scott Rae: But if it's intentional, something intrinsically valuable about you, about the sanctity of your life, that means if you're intentionally run over, somebody's done something unethical, immoral to you, because it violates that principle. Basically what makes that a bad consequence is the prior principle of the sanctity of your life. And so the utilitarian has to smuggle in their principles in order to have any kind of meaning that's viable for the concept of harms and benefits.

Sean McDowell: Okay. So let's apply this specifically to a scenario that is in Infinity War. There's two different instances. Both, Thanos has different Avengers and he's going to kill them. In one case he has Thor, and Loki the brother of Thor has what's called a tesseract, a space stone, Thanos wants it. And he says, "I will kill Thor if you don't give it to me." So in this case, Loki has the choice of either letting Thanos kill him or giving him the power that will enable him, ultimately in principle, to harm more people. The other case, Star Lord, whose girlfriend so to speak would be Gamora, Thanos now has her. And Gamora had made Star Lord promise that if Thanos gets her that he would kill her and take her life 'cause she has information that would also lead Thanos to get another stone and become more powerful. Is there a difference between Loki allowing Thanos to kill Thor and between Star Lord intentionally killing Gamora?

Scott Rae: Let's make one distinction here right at the start. And that I there's a difference between sacrificing yourself and sacrificing someone else who's unwilling. And you only have the right to sacrifice yourself for a greater good. So there's a difference between me falling on the grenade to save my battalion, and me pushing you on the grenade to save our battalion. Okay? The first one, that's a legitimate act of self sacrifice, so we rightly call the person a hero. The second one I think we would say is murder, even though good consequences have come out of that. I think most people would say it's wrong. It's wrong to push my buddy onto the grenade rather than jumping on it myself. So then the question is, is there a difference between me jumping on the grenade and if I ... say I've been shot, and say "Sean, push me on the grenade so that I don't have pain."

I think technically I think there is a difference because there's a difference between suicide and homicide. And I think even with my consent, if I say, "John, shoot me." You still committed something unethical. It's a different level of culpability than say, "Sean save my life." And you shoot me. So that's different because there's a difference between a person sacrificing himself or herself being willing or not. In fact, we wouldn't even call it sacrifice if the person's unwilling.

Sean McDowell: If they're unwilling. Correct. Okay. All right. How about let me ask this question. I think you've kind of answered it, but is it every okay to kill somebody against their will assuming that the person didn't commit a crime or it's not-

Scott Rae: An innocent?

Sean McDowell: An innocent. Because in this movie Thanos is trying to get all the stones, so he becomes a God like figure and essentially is gonna wipe out half the universe ultimately to save the universe. This is the motivation the movie has given to him. Now of course, I always wonder in a movie like this, how do we really know this is the only option, especially a movie that had ... there's so much technology and solutions. How would we really know that's ever the option?

Scott Rae: I think to know that would require omniscience.

Sean McDowell: I think that's right. So the lack of that knowledge does change the moral calculus so to speak. So even if he's motivated by good to save people, he throws Gamora off this cliff because he's trying to get what's called the soul stone, and the rule is a soul for a soul. Is that a principle okay? Or is it because it's against her will that it's wrong period?

Scott Rae: I think it is always wrong to be the cause of death of an innocent person's life. Whether they're willing or not I think is irrelevant in that. So if I am the cause ... Let's say that you're dying of cancer. And you say, "Scott, put me out of my misery. Put a pillow over my face." I think I've still committed an unethical act, whether you're willing or not. In the case that you describe, I would say, yes, consequences don't matter because it's always wrong to cause the death of an innocent person. And it is never right to do evil in order to accomplish good.

Sean McDowell: So let me ask you this question.

Scott Rae: How come I get the sense I'm being set up?

Sean McDowell: I'm not setting you up. I'm unpacking this with the precision that I can 'cause these are actually questions that I've been thinking about and I wrestle with my students as well. But I am glad you're on your end and I am on my end asking the questions.

Scott Rae: We'll change that in a minute.

Sean McDowell: That's right. We will. Now pro lifers, in principle, as far as I know are against the killing of abortion doctors. This is the principle I've seen every pro life organization make. And yet, many pro lifers would say they're okay with assassination attempts on Hitler. Now one difference seems to be, and this is played out in kind of the Avengers movie, is ... you can tell me if this is morally relevant or not. Is there a difference when all options have been exhausted versus when there's still options that are on the table? So there's a scene where vision says, "Take the stone out of my head. And it will take my life." Although he's willing to sacrifice himself which brings another moral distinction.

And then Captain America steps in and says, "We don't trade one life for another." They said there's still options we can exhaust first before we do this. So is one distinction that in the country in which we live in, there still are options before killing an abortion doctor that could be persuading somebody, pregnancy resource centers, could be passing bills that protect the unborn. Is that a legitimate piece of the puzzle why pro lifers would be against the scenario that I laid up and what else would be relevant?

Scott Rae: Yes. It's very relevant. The way I put it is in that situation you have what I call a genuine moral conflict where, from a deontological view of things, you have principles in conflict. Now don't be alarmed at that because in a fallen broken world, we should expect that. This is no necessary commentary on God's commands. It's a commentary on the broken mixed up world that His commands are working themselves out in. In fact, I'm a little surprised we don't have it more often than we do. So take a classic example of this is when in world war two, when Corrie Ten Boom was ... "Are you hiding Jews?" She had a very serious moral dilemma between the obligation to save innocent life and to tell the truth. And she had to choose. There was no tell the truth and sort of punt the providence and hope for the best. She had to make a choice. She was faced with a genuine conflict. And I think with the assassination of someone like Hitler ... And this is what the theologian teacher Bonhoeffer faced.

And he admitted he faced a genuine moral conflict 'cause he was a committed pacifist as a Christian, but saw the tyranny, basically what Hitler was doing to the Jewish people, engaging in genocide, as something that had to be stopped. So I think he legitimately saw that as a genuine moral conflict. Now he believed that either option would be sin, which I think creates a bigger theological problem than ethical one because it puts God in the position of basically mandating that we sin. So I would prefer to frame it as though he had a choice between two goods, a greater good that he had to choose from instead of a lesser evil. But the difference between Hitler and the abortion doctor is that Hitler is not an innocent.

In a sense, that the commander in chief of any military form is considered a combatant. And it is perfectly moral within the just war tradition to target combatants. Now it's always wrong to target non combatants, so women, children, generally speaking, though we have women in combat. But you don't target combatants. And so that's another distinction that's relevant here too. You could probably make an argument that Bonhoeffer had other options, to wait for the French, the British and the Americans, to overrun Germany and to throw Hitler out of power. But he saw an urgency to it that is probably hard to fault, given that there were, by that time ... By the time Bonhoeffer was executed for his role in the failed plot to kill Hitler, probably 5 and a half million of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust had been killed. So you could say, "Yeah, we'd wait for other options." I'm not a particularly patient person when genocide's taking place.

Now I think the other relevant thing with the pro life movement, this is a place for taking the consequence into account. It's not the engine that drives the train.

Sean McDowell: Gotcha.

Scott Rae: It's the caboose. But you don't lock off the caboose and pretend it doesn't matter. So question I often ask is, What does killing abortion doctors do to the overall prospects for saving the unborn. And I think generally speaking, the cultural damage that is done to the pro life cause when an abortion doctor is killed is so significant that it ... that just sets the cause way way back. Now I get the analogy of if a physician was coming down the street killing two year olds, we wouldn't hesitate to shoot him to stop that. There, there aren't any other options, although there probably are. We could restrain them, we could call the police, we could do lots of different things.

But ultimately what killing the abortion doctors would do for the fate of the unborn in general I think is so damaging and so harmful. And that's a place where I think it's worthwhile to take a consequence into account. But consequences never are the only thing that matters. Sometimes they can arbitrate when appeal to principles alone does not solve a dilemma. But it never trumps a clear moral value or a virtue.

Sean McDowell: That makes sense. That's a great qualification. I think that's why ultimately Thanos is the villain because he's not making decisions ... He really is making utilitarian decisions when it's all said and done, even though he has or claims to have good motivations, and the story sets him up as if he has, he's still violating individual human rights. We don't know that there's not other options that could be considered. Let me switch and end just kind of with this question 'cause I think there's a dynamic that's set up in this movie between what is true love, what is real sacrifice, and what is not?

So Gamora asks Star Lord to take her life, again instance where Thanos has her. And you see him just torn between do I really do this because I love this person, is this honoring her request in the best overall? Whereas Thanos throws her, even though he claims to love Gamora, and the movie sets it up as if he kind of does in a strange way, he throws her off the cliff to get the power. And later in the film, Star Lord when he discovers this, he says, "This is not love." I thought what a powerful contrast, which you look in scripture, you clearly see where John 15:13 talks about greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. So it's almost as if this contrast is being made between what sacrifice is and its relationship to real love. So here's vision, who's willing to say, "Take the stone out of my forehead, laying my life down." He's almost like a Christ type figure versus Thanos who's willing to take somebody else's life intentionally rather than find some other option.

So what are your thoughts on just the relation, we'll end with this, between sacrifice and between real love.

Scott Rae: What you described there is just a glorious picture of the Gospel message, that the genuine item in real love is the willingness to sacrifice for other people that you care about. We all do this when we become parents. The definition of a parent is that your interest now go to the bottom of the pile. And most parents do that willingly.

Sean McDowell: Right.

Scott Rae: And because they recognize that once I have a child, everything changes. And the idea of sacrificing for someone else is not a foreign concept anymore. Once I became a dad, I learned more about the love of God for me than any other relationship that I've ever been involved in. And it's just a wonderful picture of the kind of self sacrifice that is the evidence of what real love actually is.

Sean McDowell: It's amazing how movies like this, whether intentionally or not, really are centered on Gospel sacrificial love themes. Now I don't know if the producers did it intentionally or not. In some sense, it's almost more powerful if they didn't. 'Cause if they've been working for a decade on this film, and they climax with the idea of sacrifice being the greatest story you can tell, maybe CS Lewis was right that this idea of sacrifice, as an act of love, has been written on the human heart. And there's an expectation that when it really happens in history, not just in Infinity War which is clearly fictional, when it really happens in history, we recognize that the death and sacrifice of Jesus is the greatest act that anybody can commit.

Scott Rae: I think it puts to rest the notion there's any kind of evolutionary basis for morality because that kind of self sacrifice gains no reproductive advantage for someone. In fact, the real hero of the movie according to an evolutionary scheme of reality is actually the biggest loser, because that character's forfeited the opportunity to do the most important thing in an evolutionary view of the world, which is pass on their genes to the next generation.

Sean McDowell: Very very interesting. Well there are many more things we could unpack here but good feedback. Thanks for the time

Scott Rae: No. This was fun.

Sean McDowell: It's been really fun. I would just encourage our listeners to ... if you gotta listen to it again to really get it, go for it. We used some big words, deontological, utilitarian, but I've already talked to these things about my son, who's just turned 14 years old, with my students in class. Use opportunities like this to engage people about The Gospel. Ask them what they thought. What a wonderful opportunity for helping Christians think but also engaging non believers.

This has been an episode of the podcast, "Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture". To learn more about us and about the posts this week and to find more episodes, go to biola.edu/thinkbiblically. If you enjoyed today's conversation about Infinity War, give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. Thanks for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything.

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Scott Rae is professor of Christian ethics and dean of the faculty at Talbot School of Theology. A noted Christian scholar and ethicist, Scott is the author of such books as Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics; Business for the Common Good; and Beyond Integrity: A Judeo-Christian Approach to Business Ethics. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in social ethics from the University of Southern California, a Th.M. in Old Testament from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a B.A.S. in economics from Southern Methodist University. He has served in a variety of teaching and leadership roles, including a term as president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2015.

Sean McDowell is an associate professor of Christian apologetics at Talbot School of Theology. A prolific educator, speaker and author, Sean has written and edited numerous books — including The Fate of the Apostles; A New Kind of Apologist; and Is God Just a Human Invention? — and has co-authored many others with his father, Josh McDowell, including More Than A Carpenter and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. He has a Ph.D. in apologetics and worldview studies from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and master's degrees in theology and philosophy from Talbot. In addition to his speaking at camps, churches, schools, universities and conferences, Sean also blogs regularly at seanmcdowell.org.